Saturday - Team USA Clinic - 8/21, 22/10

8/21, 22/10 - Team USA Clinic - Saturday
Congrats to all of the vaulters (and other equestrians) who have qualified for the World Equestrian Games! Now, it's all of matter of perfect practice and preparation this month, really getting into gear for the next! It's going to be so exciting! For vaulting, the qualified athletes are:
Womens:
Megan Benjamin
Mary McCormick
Ali Divita
Katherine Wick (Alternate)

Mens:
Kenny Giesler
Todd Griffiths
Kristian Roberts
Patrick Stevens (Alternate)

Team:
F.A.C.E. Vaulting Team (WHOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!)

All of the qualified vaulters participated in the Team USA Training Clinics.

This year's team USA clinic wasn't all about the fitness aspect of vaulting. On Saturday, I woke up bright and early to meet my team in Woodside at 8am. First, the whole team USA had a meeting over Skype with Sarah Ike, about drug-testing. We learned all about prohibited/ restricted substances and permitted substances. It's very important that we watch the things we put into, and on our bodies. If we were drug tested at the games and accidentally tested positive, we could be disqualified. Even for an accident like drinking a little to much caffeine in morning coffee, having foods with lots of poppy-seeds, taking Advil, etc...! It was great to have that session to know how strict the "drug-list" is. We also learned how the testing process takes place...........

Following the session with Sarah Ike, our team a 3 hour Sports Psychology session with Katie Purvelle. We worked through lots of communication and bonding exercises, learned tools for "grounding" ourselves, focusing, communicating, preparing, etc... It was very interesting, and very helpful to learn all of the valuable tools that Katie had to teach us. I really think that they are going to help us make the most of our training to come, and make the best, most enjoyable experience out of WEG.

During lunch break, we learned to be models for our professional headshots, taken by Lynne Owen (for press releases), and we were custom fitted into Ariat Clothing for opening ceremonies. During the fitting, I found out that Ariat was going to make a custom sized outfit for me, because the picked out outfit didn't come in my size. So, I'll be the only 4'6, 14 year old girl in an Ariat adult outfit that's her size! COOL!

Our last class of the day was a session with the USEF Media Trainer. Our 3 hour session consisted of learning all the little hints and tricks of interviews, how to present ourselves during an interview, how to speak properly during an interview, how to get YOUR point across no matter what kinds of questions are asked, etc... We were also interviewed by the media trainer as testers so that the trainer could pin-point little things that we need to work on for our real interviews. My mom was very excited to hear that we got media trained, she now has no doubt that come an interview at the games, I'll do just fine!

Lastly on Saturday, we vaulted on the barrels for a couple hours. I worked on compulsory exercises, drills, stretching, and runthroughs of my compulsories. Then the whole team worked on the freestyle on the barrel. Lynne Owen took some really nice pictures of our freestyle on the barrel, which next day lead to her taking some outstanding pictures on the horse!......... :-)